Friday Facts #375 - Quality

[thermomug]

I think the Quality feature is AWESOME !!
+ So many more complex layouts to consider, it adds depth and variety to playstyles, which I like so much about the game. Looking at other peoples factories and getting your mind blown even after hundreds of hours is just so unique about this game and I love it.
+ Also getting better personal equipment/buildings is a huge motivator. Quality enables some long awaited improvements for me like long-range radars, longer-range turrets, lower-energy beacons, bigger accumulators, bigger bot batteries, etc. it's really awesome!
+ I am totally okay with the randomness, as quality is a real thing in real production lines that has to be dealt with. (real quality is about filtering the "bad" items instead of the good ones thought, but it does not matter much IMO). We already have randomness in Uranium processing. It's also not that your base gets messed up by thousands of different quality items, as these items only appear where the player decided to place quality modules, if I understand it right.
+ The thoughts on overall balancing of game strategies sounds very promising! Transitioning and balancing one optimal approach (producing ordinary stuff locally) to another (centralized space production + distribution) is at the core of engineering and once again so close to the real deal !

- As someone stated in the first comments, I don't like the names of the quality stages. I suspect there are no legends being told about a very high quality copper wire. I'd prefer "excellent copper wire" or sth. like that.
- The quality modules look kinda odd, like made of antimatter. Why are they two colored and not mono, like the others?
- I have some concerns about performance. Mixed items on a belt are usually bad for performance and splitters are costly, but I suppose a player will only want to create high quality equip/buildings/modules ONCE. Meaning there seems to be no point in producing higher quality research flasks nor in producing intermediates, as their only use is for building the actual stuff.

Overall, I am super hyped and happy with this feature, cannot wait for next week!

[MP23]

I think it is important to note that the large majority of factorio players likely has some degree of OCD.

I think this feature may be really cool as a concept, but it should be limited in scope, if litterally everything has quality then it will become a huge distraction and people will feel forced to pursue it, especially in late game, I feel like it may decrease enjoyment. Like others, I think it is the first factorio feature I am not enthusiastic about (in its current state at least).

If 70% of the factory and of the player's attention is dedicated to making these high quality products, I feel like it would really be a shame, and also would be distracting from how awesome the main game is.

One suggestion by another user that may be a step in the right direction was to only have quality for machines, not intermediates (since mk2 needs mk1 as ingredients, we can keep the numbers for the probabilities). I feel the scale of the production that would be dedicated to that would be more reasonable. Instead of having a single assembler to make assemblers, you would need an actual setup with recycling to make good assemblers. It would also make it look a lot less cluttered with the huge number of quality icons.

As everyone, I also think it would be better to change the naming to something truer to factorio and less "lootboxy".

If there is an option to get "better" products, people will always go for it, even if it decreases their enjoyment of the game. I dont think making it "optional" is the solution, if this feature is kept I hope it will be tweaked so that it does not become the main focus of the game.

[SirSmuggler]

Friday, home from work, reading great FFF about interesting new stuff to come, me be like
Proceds to read the forum only to see a ton of negativity, me be back to

For what it's worth, I like the sound of this quality stuff and very much look forward to trying it.

[OdinEidolon]

They said it’s optional, but I think you’ll enjoy the quality mechanic once you try it. It’s like playing normally but you get some upgrades for free sometimes. And you can chase quality if you want or just accept it as a random bonus.

If you think about it too hard, the whole science crafting and consuming mechanic is weird, what’s the real life equivalent? But it makes the game fun.

It isn't a matter of realism. I don't like the idea of adding another machine tier system, factorio already has one and I don't feel like the game need more tiers. Besides I absolutely despise the fact that it's based on RNG. In my opinion this is the first mistake they made in the development of factorio.
It's a good thing that it's optional, I hope the expansion won't rely too much on this system.

[tuhe]

Perhaps someone can clear this up:
My understanding of the feature is that it would serve no purpose for the science production (i.e., we don't quality module that, so it is regular products all the way).

However, in the end-game we also have a "quality"-subfactory that supplies a mall for "quality" buildings. Then we use that to upgrade our regular factory. This upgrading procedure will be like adding beacons/modules, but much more expanded and rewarding.

Then we get into interesting choices like quality-boosting some of the production (green circuits) to make the mall more effective, or pipe "low quality" products into the science part of the factory rather than breaking them down.

I really like this to be honest. it seems to only affect one part of the factory (the mall) and in a way that makes it both a lot more interesting (i.e., not bot mall #117) AND boost our overall factory by giving us access to quality products AND make the mall interact more with the rest of the factory.

I was a bit anxious about this when I was thinking about my belts all being mixed, but now I am really loving the feature. .

Ps.
The names are a trap! The devs know this feature will be controversial, so they put in these names to serve as lightning rods

Pps.
I can just see myself tipping a box of top-quality prod 3 modules into a recycler by accident... oy.

[KatherineOfSky]

Wow, just wow! This looks AMAZING! I love that you are not just "adding more recipes" as many mods do, but adding quality gameplay depth! This is going to revolutionize play, and I am sooooo excited for it!

[RedViper]

I think it's the first time I've seen the devs implement something I do not like.

It's very inelegant, it doesn't fit the game, it's super "gamey", we're adding a tiering system on top of another tiering system.

Yes real life manufacturing has some level of tolerance, but in most mature processes it's very minimal. Semiconductor manufacturing is like the one area where tolerance levels are pretty high, but that's because they're always dealing in bleeding edge tech.

The inventory bloat is going to be miserable to deal with.

As for the "ignore it" recommendation, that's just silly. First of all the expansion will obviously be balanced around using the feature, you can also complete the base game without using beacons, or modules, or bots, or trains, or belts but it doesn't mean the game was balanced around it.

I've never been a fan of mods that add 5 tiers of the same thing to allow you to go to crazy levels, this is essentially the same thing but maybe even sillier and applied to *everything*. At least some mods give you different buildings that look cool, pyanodons, krastorio, se.

[mmmPI]

I have mixed first feeling about the feature, it sounds like a super thing for a mod i would play once to get a different experience of the game, but i'm not sure i would appreciate the additions to always be present at all times, considering many of the existing overhaul mods i grew attached with over time had already made their own system for progression in tier. I very much appreciate that it's only a benefit you get from potentially higher quality, and no penalty for low quality, and that you don't see any of it if you do not research the modules.

also

On the other hand, if someone wants to just slow-run the game and enjoy having everything semi-perfect and over-prepare before moving to another planet, the possibility is certainly there.

thank you


For the quality name i think they make more sense for the equipment, it sound RPG-related, and a little off that "rare" or "legendary" be used for a copper cable or a power pole. Although , in choke point, i could very well see myself looking for an epic flamethrower turret but it feels like it should be owned then Instead the numerical value would be more neutral, and would represent the number of visible regions in the icon. But if one can choose its own i suggest :

Quality 1 "nope" : there's none
Quality 2 " meh" : could be worse
Quality 3 " k " : it's ok
Quality 4 " +" : more than ok
Quality 5 " waow": shiny

The FFF has a lot of information , i think the various upgrade associated with the different entities are very good, it's difficult to picture what will be possible, many of those are present in mods, like robot battery upgrade or larger pole coverage, it could make blueprints more specific, if it is requiring a certain quality of buildings, or inputs, it also multiply by a lot the possibilities.

Nothing on high quality trains or wagons, but i can't imagine those wouldn't be faster and have more capacity as they are not listed in those that only get health bonus like rails.
Mining drills deplete resources slower. this is great Qol in late game !
Inserters move faster. i think train stations and i like it !
Nuclear reactors, boilers and steam engines have increased production. yes !

I really like the "recycler" concept and it totally fit with the idea of quality, the positive feedback loop problem was lurking with the mods using some sort of it, cutting the max productivity to 300% per step and only getting back 25% of material feel harsh but solve it i guess. It's always difficult when you have different receipe for the same product, it gets even harsher if the yield is calculated on the most efficient receipe and it was not the one used to make the product, and if not, there might still be some positive feedback loop possible, plastic , solid fuel


I'm most appealed by the "strategic implications" 3 4 5, i imagine interplanetary shipping is expensive and as such transfering high quality make sense and i feel the implications are a welcome depths to the game, same as using high quality material for a space platform and not for rarely used inserter, or gambling for personnal equipment or car i think it's fun

I think it's also an incentive to mess around with circuits networks, potentially in a very simple form, to pick up good quality items, and get to use them for players that wouldn't otherwise do, or make a machine that recycle until the armor is at the desired quality and so on. It is also an incentive to avoid manual crafting, as i guess you can't actually place the white modules on the players.


All those things feels like a lot of "new", this is a huge feature, and knowing that playing factorio will mean dealing with all this all the time is a weird thought. i don't want to be thinking " where are my epic power poles i only have rares ones everywhere ? " which is something that tends to happens (to me) a lot when one has many tiers of buildings ( and not just for the contradiction in names ).

i'm appealed by high quality intermediate or product for space plateform and equipment whereas with buildings, i'm disliking/afraid , it yields weird situations like : which is better between rare wooden pole and uncommon small pole ? and having up to 10 slots used only for 1 of each quality is one of the annoyance, the inventory feels too small, maybe 5 times too small ? or it makes inventory management more difficult and it's not a particularly fun part of the game to me.

Maybe this should be written in big with a "disclaimer" before x) :

It's also worth noting that while it's a lot of fun to play with quality, using it is completely optional. The expansion is balanced in a way that using quality can be beneficial, but it is reasonable to finish the game without touching quality at all. Typically, people who want to just finish the game are more likely to not touch quality much, while those who want to build a big factory will have very good reasons to use it.

[warlordship]

I'm gonna have to chime in here and... currently, am not a fan of this implementation.

- Anyone with the barest LICK of OCD like me is going to either completely ignore quality, or refuse to use it at all until you can fully automate up to the max tier.

- I am not liking both the naming and the colors of tiers. Please keep MMO/looter quality away from Factorio. Instead of colors, use simple one-color pips, and make them vertical rather than a growing cluster of colored dots that may be hard to read at a quick glance/distance. A full vertical bar on the side of an item might be better.

- 5 tiers is a bit much. Since most of this game currently sticks to 3 tiers max, can we stick to 3 + quality levels instead? They can be 50% more performance per, and severely reduce the amount of busy-work a player'd have to go through to reach max tier. Since at late game, it's T5 or GTFO, this means you have to automate machines that rip up anything T4 or below constantly.

- The RNG on this is also depressing. I'm more in favor of a straight 2:1 combiner to increase quality. Similar to how modules are improved now, I'd rather automate an assembly line that combines a few Q1 items into Q2. However, since we already do that for Tier on modules, this now introduces a kind of strange dilemma.... I almost think that I'd rather just have more Tiers to everything, rather than Tier *AND* Quality.

- Recycler needs to be available earlier. I don't want to have to hold on to my old burner miners and burner inserters and old wood chests and player pistols for half the game to get some use out of their resources. If you wish to gate recyclers to keep them from allowing someone to slowly farm up to Q5, then lock recycler module slots behind a late-game tech, the same tech you planned to allow recyclers in the first place.

[quineotio]

To the Devs reading this, I feel your pain. Even if people choose not to use this feature, they can (and will) still complain. You only have to go through this once a week, for a year, lol

I think this will achieve your goal of another form of progression, and it will be fun and interesting to experiment with it. I'm looking forward to seeing what else you've got coming

[pointa2b]

It's a shame they wasted development time for such a "feature" but if it's really optional then all is good.

You have like 50 more FFFs before you should make that call. I expect this is foundational to a lot of the new stuff going into the expansion.

Do you choose between a slower space platform that gathers its own fuel or do you preload it with high quality rocket fuel and let it get there faster?

There are so many optimizations that this base system might unlock.

How many times have people whined about solar panels not putting out enough power? Well, now you have five tiers of them automatically. And if that isn’t enough power you can burn tier five nuclear fuel cells in a tier five nuclear reactor.

I think they just opened up Factorio in ways we can hardly imagine.

If it will be so important in the expansion then I'll will not buy the expansion.

Re-read the FFF my guy. They state pretty clearly you can completely ignore this mechanic and get through the game. Its simply there if you want to go down the rabbit hole, as they state in the beginning.

----

Suggestion for devs:

Personally I think this is a very clever way to implement higher tiers of items without adding 5 more separate tiers of items (MK 1, 2, etc) of everything to make it happen. My only suggestion is that there is some other more elegant way to deal with the process of 'grinding' for higher tier items outside of dozens/hundreds/thousands of recyclers destroying items en masse (which is still a great mechanic!), perhaps within the crafting building itself. Functionality within the assembler itself where you can select the tier to output, and only if it RNGs that quality will it output, otherwise a smaller percentage of its components will get recycled back into the next cycle for crafting. It can work at a reduced efficiency from the recycler in terms of yield, but the payoff is everything is integrated within the crafter itself.

Of course I/we don't know the rest of the functionality you're adding in the expansion, but depending on those circumstances the above^ could either be base functionality once quality is researched, or can be enabled as a later game research option, basically allowing for more compact/simple setups at the added expense of greater material inefficiency.

If added quality mechanics don't exist, please consider adding something like this in game.

[Jarin]

I am, let us say, extremely leery of the introduction of RNG to the production line. Like "had to double check this wasn't April Fools" kind of leery. It just sounded like such a terrible idea to start with, and so completely against the existing design of the game. But as I read further, seeing the scrapper and the sorting, and the quality components guaranteeing quality results... well, I'm still leery, but willing to see how it plays out I guess. The only RNG we'd had in the game up to this point was Uranium processing, and that was already a headache that took so much more fiddling than anything else in the factory.

I suppose I should have expected a significant increase in fiddly jank with Earendel on the team now. Just please please please, no single-item-production buildings like got scattered all over Space Exploration? I wasn't worried about it before, since the original dev team put so much effort and thought into practical usability and player guidance (i.e. using the science tiers to encourage players to mass-produce certain items as they progress). But with this, I'm starting to be concerned about some of the SE dev philosophy getting rolled into the base game. I swear, if I see one more building that only makes ONE item that is used for nothing but ONE science pack and nothing practical, I'm going to scream.

[tuhe]

To the Devs reading this, I feel your pain. Even if people choose not to use this feature, they can (and will) still complain. You only have to go through this once a week, for a year, lol

I think this will achieve your goal of another form of progression, and it will be fun and interesting to experiment with it. I'm looking forward to seeing what else you've got coming

I must admit I was reading it and thinking "oh no", "isn't this just a tier to a building", "do I need to split off this stuff everywhere in the factory" etc. etc. Then warming up to it near the end.

Now the more I think about it, the more I like this feature -- for starters, top-tier buildings make lower tier buildings irrelevant, and top tier modules mean lower-tier modules are just an intermediate after a few hours. However, this way, we need to deal with intermediates of all qualities in the sub-factory devoted to creating quality products for the mall.

I hope this feature is kept (the names can be whatever) because I would really like to play around with it -- it is not something I was expecting from the expansion at all.

[FuryoftheStars]

I'm wrestling with this myself. On the one hand, quality levels kind of makes sense (irl, you do have different qualities of products out there, not only in the final product but also in the intermediaries used within it and the raw materials used to make them), but on the other hand, the way this FFF reads, it doesn't feel like a Factorio mechanic as implemented (which really, made me want to post a instant reaction of "nope, not for me"). At minimum, I feel like there may be way too much RNG to this, and the names definitely don't fit. I'm a bit torn between the idea of using modules for this, or as others have posted, requiring higher tier assemblers to make higher quality low tier assemblers/products. :/

[morsk]

Radars have larger reveal ranges.

This is pushing the limits. Currently radar reveals to 14, and players generate 20 chunks into the black area, slowly. It leaves 0-6 chunks of black, depending on how much time the player spends on the edges of the factory. Most people think "about 3 chunks" is some kind of mechanic, and don't know how it works.

Legendary Radar will be revealing to 18, leaving only 0-2 chunks of black. It's always been possible to exploit this on purpose, and you can be silly by using Spidertrons or Artillery for exploration since they generate only what they reveal, unlike a player. But the smaller the margins are, the more likely people start hitting it accidentally at large scales.

[Tertius]

This is very interesting. This quality stuff will get me back into the real game, away from using the map editor with its infinity chests, tinkering with creating the most efficient blueprint, because the quality challenges seem only meaningful in the real game. There will probably exist more than one "most efficient" factory for some given item, depending on what you define as most efficient and your overall technology progress. This really promotes choices and decisions. It will move focus more to the way how to produce the items, not simply to create and use one blueprint and done with it.

It's a different layer to add complexity than I expected. Not simply more and more deeply nested recipes as I feared, but a completely new and even optional challenge that makes the late game much more interesting, because you don't simply duplicate everything to produce more.

Looking forward to it!

[keks244]

I don't like the randomness and the recycle loops of this mechanic.
Wasting materials until that randomizer gives its "okay" just feels wrong.
In real industry quality isn't a byproduct. It is a result of a well designed process.

And there are already tiers in the game. Now we can have tiered tiers ? - dafuq

[jaworeq]

I don't understand this part: "the legendary items are 56 times more expensive than normal items".
Isn't it the case, that (with 300% productivity recycling) the material cost is the same and you just use more time and electricity?

[firestar246]

So, my thoughts:

First, I am glad quality is an optional feature inside the DLC. I believe this feature can and will be fun, but I see also the times where I would want to play without it implemented, so good move on that part.

I've scanned the comments, and notice a lot of both hesitation and anticipation. I,for one, am on the anticipation side. I think it is a really cool idea, and changes gameplay up in a unique way. I can see how it won't be for everyone, which is another reason while I'm glad this is optional within the DLC.

To those worrying, just wait and try it. Wube hasn't disappointed us so far, and I'm sure there is a ton of awesome content alongside this feature.

[Cordylus]

I really like the idea of quality as it adds more tiers of machines, but I also do not like the RNG aspect of that. Doing items over and over again just to find the "rare" one seems like a terrible idea which do not fit the industrial feel of the game.
Tuning assemblers into slot machines sounds awful.

I would rather apply he idea of quality by increasing the amount of resources needed to build the higher quality structures.

Also the names need to change. Proposed names are suitable for something you loot, not craft.